


for a minute or two

by realitywarpinq



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Child Abuse, Ficlet, Fluff, Gen, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Short & Sweet, Vignette, Whump, it's not too heavy tho i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23518171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realitywarpinq/pseuds/realitywarpinq
Summary: Thomas doesn’t look at his father as he passes through the kitchen.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow & Phyllis Baxter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 58





	for a minute or two

Thomas doesn’t look at his father as he passes through the kitchen. He’s bent over a mechanism laid out on the kitchen table, fiddling with a screwdriver, so Thomas keeps his footsteps light, praying he’s absorbed enough in the job that he won’t pay him any mind. 

“Take off your hat in the house.”

He winces, doing so quickly, scrunching it up in his hands in an attempt to cover the rip in the front seam of his waistcoat, the missing button, the way his blazer pocket is flapping against his breast with each step. 

But then his father grabs him by the collar and he knows he’s been caught out. 

“What’s this?” he wrenches him over and Thomas has to concentrate to stay standing. “What’ve you done this time?”

“No one- not- I--,” Thomas says, eyes glued to the floor. “Nothing. I fell--” he grits his teeth to avoid crying out as his father tightens his grip, lifting him just enough to force him onto his tiptoes.

“Let me see, boy!”

Thomas lowers his hands to his sides and there’s an endless second of nothing before-

“Good Lord, look at the state of you... I can’t believe this, I really can’t,” He’s quiet at first, almost concerned, but it soon twists into more. “You dirty little sod.” 

Thomas’ waistcoat was an embankment holding back a lifetime of his father’s rage and, upon splitting, a tidal wave has burst through the crack ready to consume him. It’s sudden and petrifying, but not at all unfamiliar. 

“You think these clothes come cheap?” He spits venom in place of shouting. “Do you? That I should be expected to shell out for repairs?”

Thomas’ heart is thudding so strongly it’s as if the blasted thing is trying to answer him. He holds still, concentrates on keeping his breathing even. This will end eventually, but he’s to listen to the riot act if he wants to get to - and then past - his punishment.

“What is it you think I do all day?” His father continues, because of course he does. “I work, that’s what. I work hard, day in and day out, to earn money. Money to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table! Now, what do you do all day, while I’m working?”

Thomas looks up when his father doesn’t say more. “I-”

“You go to school.” He nods, scoffing. He pulls at the remaining waistcoat buttons, the last few stitches holding his pocket in place. “Though why those poor teachers are still bothering with you I can’t imagine... So, you go to school and you get your clothes ruined. Do you think, Thomas, that when I’m working, I envision my hard-spent hours are for repairing a bally uniform you’ll be sure to grow out of by next year?”

The pocket comes off with one final tug and his father slaps it into Thomas' hands, a web of thread dangling between them. 

Thomas studies the entanglement, lets shame keep his eyes down where they're best kept. He knows better than to apologise, to explain himself, answer back. 

Like the final, indignant flame of a dying fireplace his father's anger releases him with a force that sends him stumbling backwards. A sharp pain erupts in his side as he bangs against the table’s edge.

"You clumsy fool!" His father cries as cogs and screws spill loudly to the floor. 

Thomas quickly bends to pick them up, starting with the ones furthest away in the hopes that his father will have calmed down by the time he gets within kicking distance. A good strategy, perhaps, because he doesn’t move or speak as he watches him clear the floor. 

Once collected, the mechanisms make an unavoidable, rattling din as he places them back onto the table. 

“Off to your room,” His father says finally, unimpressed by Thomas' efforts to herd the last pieces into stillness. “I don’t want to look at you again until Helen, Phyllis and I have had tea."

Ah. The reason for such a light penalty. They’ve a guest over. 

He jumps as a smack claps the back of his head. Satisfied, his father turns back to his work.

Thomas’ neck, ribs and crown hum their pain in unison but he ignores them, straightens and leaves for the staircase as though his father had never seen him come in.

*

Halfway up the stairs a sound permeates Thomas’ stinging thoughts.

Giggling. It’s faint and girlish; overlapping, uninhibited.

A few steps higher and he identifies the source as his and Helen’s bedroom. 

He stands on the landing, listening, until the noise begins to irritate him, plucks at the nerves behind his eyes. When he can stand it no more he strides over and swings the door open.

“-Two, three, one, two-- wait, oh no-!” Helen stumbles into Phyllis and they fall about laughing again. 

They’re standing next to one another in the centre of the cramped room, craning to read a book they’ve left open on Helen’s bed with their hands held out limp to the air in front of them.

Phyllis catches sight of him and Thomas scowls at her.

“Thomas! How are you?” She smiles, so bloody nice as always. Then she spots his waistcoat hanging open beneath his blazer, the pocket in his hand. “What happened to your clothes?”

"None of your business, that's what."

Phyllis looks mildly amused. Because of course, why would she take her friend’s pathetic little brother seriously? How he hates the way they look down on him, as if he were a baby. He’s eleven years old, thank you very much, and much cleverer than either of them will ever be. Never mind what that fat ha'p'orth downstairs may think.

“Don’t be so rude, Thomas,” Helen says haughtily.

"Don't be so ugly, Helen," He retorts cleverly. 

She sighs, gestures to his uniform. "You know, if you stopped being such a brat people mightn't want to hit you so badly."

Thomas brings himself to his full height, which, unfortunately, is nothing against two sixteen year olds. "Who's to say I didn't hit him first?"

"Me, that's who. 'Cause I know you're all mouth and no muscle." She laughs but Phyllis doesn't join in.

Thomas says nothing, thinks about slamming the door and stomping back downstairs to the back garden, and it's a tempting thought, but then he'd be alone and no doubt in trouble again for the racket it'd make.

Helen tugs on Phyllis' sleeve, starts moving her feet again. "So it goes, here, then here, then here-"

"What are you doing?" He asks, swinging the door back and forth on its hinges so he can watch it's movement instead of theirs.

"Learning to dance," Phyllis tells him. Her voice is much too soft for a girl her age. What she sees in his sister, he'll never know. "I'll fix your clothes for you if you help us practise?" 

She offers him her hand like she's a dandy and he a deb, laughing at the absurdity of it as if they're actually friends. “I can’t promise it'll be as good as new, but I can try my best.”

He doesn't take it, only stares at her hand until she lowers it again.

Helen rolls her eyes. "You're flogging a dead horse there, Phyllis. He won't do it."

"He might've."

"We don't need him anyway. I'll lead."

"Don't be daft, what good would come of you learning to lead? Won't you, Thomas?" 

"He'll ridicule us the entire way."

"No he won't," Phyllis says, and then in a whisper that he can easily hear, for all her good intentions, "Obviously he wants to be here or he'd've gone by now."

Thomas stops swinging the door, embarrassed, but still he can't make himself leave. He wants to say something to deny it, but he can't think of an insult that'll give him the high ground without inspiring Helen to forcibly remove him from the room.

So instead he toes the joins between the wooden slats of the floor with an air of boredom. That should do it.

Phyllis persists. "It'll be fun. Come on, Thomas, please."

He looks up and they're both staring at him. Phyllis kind and soft-eyed as usual, Helen passive but not unhappy, their faces still flushed from their earlier laughter.

The longer he considers, the slighter his already tenuous grip on annoyance becomes. He can't deny it looked awful fun...

"...I'll not dance with her," he manages finally, nodding at Helen. 

Before she can form a retort Phyllis says, "That's fine. You help me learn and then I'll teach her. Helen, some music, if you please." 

He lets Phyllis pull him into the centre of the room and the girls laugh at his reddening cheeks.

Helen throws herself down onto her bed, fashions a tune out of doo's and dee's and daa's. Thomas tosses the pocket onto his bed.

Phyllis rearranges his arms to where she wants them. Well, not quite. Despite his standing to attention he still only reaches her shoulders, so while he finds one hand to her back easy enough she has to bend her arm somewhat to allow him to hold her hand.

"The book said it goes like this," she says, showing him. "Step, step, left, step back, step, forward--"

"Back first, then left," Helen tells them before starting a new verse of whatever it is she believes she's singing.

Thomas finds his feet quite stuck to the floor, but Phyllis eases them both into a rotation so he’s forced to move. His too-big shoes have never caused him much bother until now.

"Ouch," she says when he steps on her foot. Not unkindly, though, because it could've easily been the other way around, what with how tangled they're getting.

Thomas allows himself one more misstep, and when they go stumbling towards the bedside lamp he springs away from her. “All right, let me see the bloody book, will you?”

Phyllis titters and Helen pushes the book toward him with her foot. He catches it as it falls off the mattress, scans the page. The full-page illustration depicts a lady in a great white frock on the arm of a tall, tailcoated gentleman.

“Looks just like us,” he comments dryly, taking in the delicately lined steps on the next page.

“I wish,” Phyllis says. “Bet she never gets pimples.”

He visualises the footwork, the way it's supposed to go, and eventually it begins to click into place. “Right - No, look, see?” He prods the page and Phyllis and Helen lean over. “You’re supposed to put your foot here and then mine goes there.”

“Ahh,” Phyllis and Helen share one of their annoying looks he can never quite discern, and it dawns on him he just expressed enthusiasm.

“Come on,” he takes Phyllis’ arm, making sure to sound frustrated. “I’ll show you.”

He does as much and she nearly gets it this time, unfortunately turning right instead of left after two successful repetitions. Then he steps on her foot again and he makes sure to explain exactly how that was her fault, not his. 

She simply laughs him off. “Whatever you say, Professor Barrow!”

“Actually that’s _Lord_ Barrow,” he corrects, chest blooming. “Duke of Stockport. Known for my impeccable dancing and having heaps of money.”

Helen sits up onto her knees, laughing too. “And you’re Lady Baxter, known for your embroidery and charity work.”

“Hush, lady’s maid,” Phyllis giggles and ducks to spin under Thomas’ arm. “The Lord and Lady are dancing. And what happened to our music?”

Helen gasps and throws a pillow at them which sets the girls off howling. Thomas’ cheeks are hurting, and when his father calls the girls down for tea his lips catch on the dryness of his teeth. 

"Aren't you coming?" Phyllis asks him as they head for the door.

He shakes his head and she gives him a sad smile, eyes flicking down to his clothes once again. "I hope you won, at least."

"Of course I did," he lies, because he neither wants nor needs her pity. "Now, if you'd please get out of my room..."

She laughs unsurely and Thomas smiles to let her know he wasn't being serious. Not entirely, anyway.

Helen calls from the stairs, "Come on, Phyllis, I'm starving!"

"I'm coming! Goodbye, Thomas."

He doesn't reply. To say goodbye would be to acknowledge when she is and isn't there, which is definitely not something he wants any of Helen's friends to think he does.

In the quiet of the now girl-free room he remembers the pain in his ribs, but it’s only a dull ache now and does little to affect his mood.

He picks the book up off Helen’s bed and lies flat on his grumbling stomach. It looks and feels almost new, the hardback edges free of any marks or dents. 

It must be Phyllis', or maybe her elder sister's. No doubt she'll be wanting it back before she goes home.

He turns to page one.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! I'd love to know your thoughts  
> my tumblr is [@realitywarpinq](https://realitywarpinq.tumblr.com/)


End file.
